Falkirk Football Historian

Research into the history of Football in Falkirk district : mainly concentrating on the the period up to 1945 I like to dig through the newspapers from the days of yore to find little vignettes that were rarely included in the published histories.
From the ugly side to the downright obscure, just don't expect me to write about anything too obvious ....

Saturday, 15 October 2016

You often hear about people's favourite moment in sport, whether it be a player droning on about such and such a goal, or a fan droning on about how [insert team/player] beat [insert team/player] and it is frankly dull IMHO.

I am a bit weird that way, I like interesting things, so I cannot relate first hand about my favourite moment in sport, partially because I have considered it, but mainly because I was not there, and it happened nearly a hundred years before I was born.

In August 1891 the Boundary Commission for Scotland transferred Alva, previously an enclave of Stirlingshire, to Clackmannanshire [where it now resides].

This, I hear no-one say, does not seem like one of the most important anythings in anything. Perhaps not, but it was pretty important for the Stirlingshire FA.

It was implicit in the Stirlingshire F.A.'s rules, that not only must the clubs be within Stirlingshire, but that the players be born in, or reside within the county to be eligible for matches.

This would be fine, had the Boundary Commission made their decision even a month previously, but now the season had started, Alva were members of the Stirlingshire FA, Alva had been drawn against Campsie in the first Round of the Cup, but Alva were not eligible to compete in the cup, yet most of their players were.

In the end it was simple for the Stirlingshire FA, they ruled that since the Glebe Park [below] was now in Clackmannanshire, the club [who were the members of the Association] could not play, Campsie [from Lennoxtown [yes, Lennoxtown was in Stirlingshire back then]] were awarded the win in the First Round, and Alva never re-entered the Stirlingshire Cup.

Glebe Park, at the East End of Stirling Street, Alva, as of 1891 now definitely NOT in Stirlingshire.

I haven't posted anything in a while mainly because I like to space posts out and because I have been taking advantage of Ancestry's free weekend to look up stuff [for example I found four Falkirk players that served in WWI that I never knew about].

I mean who would have known that Peter Gardiner was in the Army Pay Corp 1914-1918?, or that Thomas Bellingham [who played in the 1880s] at the age of 58 signed up for the Royal Defence Corps, or that Robert Terris was a mechanic in the Fleet Air Arm at HMS Daedalus?

Anyway I'm posting now because I found one of the worst examples of beaurocracy from the Army, ever, on James Higgins Laing's record:

On his conduct sheet, under "Offence"

I'm pretty sure, with a bit of thought, N/A, would have been applicable.

NB - Just for accuracy the other one was John Hotchkies in the A & S Highlanders.

Saturday, 17 September 2016

When researching football players in the dim and distant past I often have to try to find out about their lives outside of football, this can help since it adds more than just puting a players name and clubs into your friendly search engine. When you throw in an adress/spouse's name/employment it just gives more options to explore.

Which is why I was very impressed when I stumbled across the army record of Ebenezer Taylor on one of those stupidly expensive genealogy sites [however I was "researching" on a day when they were giving free access to their military papers last week ;)], and most impressed when I found a letter from his employers Aitken's Brewery to the Army stating that they would re-employ him upon his demobilisation.

From his papers also came lots of biographical details, including his family, and, interestingly [to me anyway], a paper stating that he had been a P.O.W. towards the end of the War.

Now this has got me puzzled, it has the date and place of capture 28th March 1918 at Monchy [which I assume is Monchy-le-Preux], and that he was last interned at what looks like "Wallers", and it is this last name that puzzles me, I can find nothing like this name in the list of Prisoner of War centres used during the War....

As a player he seems to have been good enough, if not setting the world ablaze, and dissapeared from the team as quickly and as anonymously as he appeared. All I know about his past was a throw-away remark on his debut match about him being "a Stirling Junior", and as far as I'm aware he never kicked a ball in anger after leaving Falkirk.

He is occasionally mentioned in the Falkirk Herald, living in Penders Lane, usually in connection with the brewery, up until 1934, when he simply dissapears, and then in 1943 he is noted as the Late E.Taylor on the occasion of the marriage of his youngest daughter. But in between I have found nothing. Looks like I'm going to have to look to the Falkirk Mail to save the day [again].

Thursday, 15 September 2016

After digging about on the internet today, I came across the attestation papers of Falkirk FC's Robert "Bob" Godfrey, one of the Falkirk players who joined the 16th Royal Scots in the very early days of the war.

A local lad, the family living on the Tryst Road, 'Bob' had just made the step up from junior football in 1912, and was begining to settle into the Falkirk side as a regular as war was breaking out.

Although normally a centre-half, he occasionally played at right-half, and was Falkirk's emergency goalkeeper [in fact he played a number of games between the sticks for the reserves].

After eventually being given a medeical discharge for having "hammer toe", Bob assisted Stenhousemuir before rejoining the Bairns for a season or two. Then he set off on a journey round many of the Scottish Second Division in the immediate post-war years.

Thursday, 1 September 2016

Whilst out and about perusing my local Cemetery [Camelon] recently I happened across another name from the past that I recognised.

I humbly apologise for my reflection ;(

I will not bluster, Archie Waugh was an average defender, but was a local lad, and son of Thomas a former secretary: after not being able to find a guaranteed spot at Falkirk he moved around before coming back to end his career as a reserve/cover in the late twenties.